Question

Imagine you work in the marketing department of a large food retailer. The recent
documentary series “ War on Waste” studied in class has illustrated the pressure the
media and the general public are placing on all organisations to be good corporate
citizens.
Your Marketing Director has asked you to produce a critical report that covers the
following:
a) The benefits and limitations of Corporate Social Responsibility.
b) The strategic options available in dealing with social issues.
c) The seven deadly sins of green washing.
Illustrate your answer with relevant examples.

Answer 1

1,. Advantage and Disadvantage of CSR

Advantages:

a) Contribution to the society: CSR is an activity carried out by big entrepreneurs or organizations to justify their responsibility towards the community. in simple word its a taking process to that society which give them factors of production.

b) A step ahead for nation-building: this gives positive support to the nation-building by providing some kind of benefit to society.

c) Getting relaxation in tax: this technique is adopted by big organizations to get tax benefits with so name and fame through their services.

Disadvantages:

a) it is a burden sum for small businesses. As their turn over is not that huge.

b) In the name of CSR so many false cases happened all over the world. the best example is a recent Samsung in Korea.

c) No proper documentation and audit.

2. There are some major social issues are there:

i) Hunger

ii) migration

iii) illiteracy

iv) poor health

v) child labor

vi) security(women and child)

vii) Unemployment

So these are some of the major issues which always present in an economy in developed nations it is less and in a poor nation, it is high in developing nation mix rate. So to control them a company can join hands with the government or it can solely take the responsibility. for example TATA's contribution to health care education and another related sector in India for a different level of issues. whereas Mahindra takes care of women's education and other related sectors to build the nation in a better way.

3. Greenwashing is a concept where it looks like your product is all-natural but the core of that product is not what they claim to be. so it associated with sins.

1. wrong information through labeling: it means what they have written and what exactly both are far away from each other. all-natural ingredients, but in reality, it is a combination of all chemicals.

2. No proper proof of natural ore real: when the company claims something and in reality, there is no proof then it is hiding the dirty reality behind it.

3. creating information ballon: this is nothing but the vagueness of information. from outside it looks like its full but inside it has nothing whatever mention in that product level.

4. not applicable information: like CFC free, generally CFC is legally banned so again writing it on product banner it has no meaning.

5. making a banned product as eco friendly: for example, organic cigarettes or organic tobacco is meaningless as they are harmful to the human body.

6. Absurd advertising: for example by drinking Redbull you will fly, which is really non-existing possibility.

7. self boosting: sometimes products are boosing their quality by producing some false certificate to attct the customer. so it is clearly objectionable and bad on the customer in future.